Inked Dragons

'You're an embarrassment, father...'

Lucius Malfoy proceeded to get morosely drunk at dinner time and then bemoaned his lot and generally took it out on Draco, starting with Draco's earing and tattoos and then moving on to expansively bigger, more pressing topics.

'I can't believe you're trying to sell my manor house. My manor house,' he slurred. 'It's been the family seat for six centuries and now my son wants to sell it.'

'It's a hateful place,' Draco said coldly with narrowed eyes. 'I was forced into taking the Dark Mark in the ballroom and prostrate myself on the floor before that man. I watched people die at his hand in our dining room. I was cursed with the Cruciatus by him in my own bedroom and anywhere else he fancied when the mood took him. No room was sacred from his vileness. I watched my contemporaries being tortured by my aunt in our sitting room. And you wonder why I don't want to keep the family home, let alone live there.'

Lucius wasn't listening. 'Perhaps you'd consider gifting it back to me. I would honour our heritage rightfully. I would sell my soul to the devil to live there again.'

'You did sell your soul to the devil. He was called Tom Riddle, though you may know him better under the pseudonym of Lord Voldemort.'

Lucius shuddered. 'Don't say his name,' he hissed.

'Does he still scare you, father?' Draco sneered.

Lucius fell silent, unwilling to admit the truth.

'I can't even comprehend how you could consider following that man as "rightfully honouring our heritage". It's positively shameful.' Draco said. 'And no, I'm not gifting you the manor because, thankfully, you're not allowed to step foot in the U.K. so it would be a pretty pointless exercise.'

'Harry Potter, you talk to him. Tell him...' he slurred, 'tell my son that—'

'Sweet Merlin, you're an embarrassment, father. You think you can wheedle your way out of seven kinds of shit with a bit of money and some useful information and we'll all forget the trauma you put us through. You tried to cast the killing curse on Harry and now you expect clemency because we're dating. It's fucking shallow and disgraceful. Especially as you'd happily stab us both in the back if it meant getting your precious bloody manor back.'

'Draco... darling...' his mother tried to appease.

'Sorry, mother, but no—'

'But Potter forgave you,' his father slurred, pointing his finger between them as he held his wine glass. 'You both nearly killed each other at school and now you're ... doing whatever you do together ... you got clemency from him—'

'It's called love, father. It's not a business deal—'

'You can't possibly love him—'.

'Lucius,' Narcissa said sternly. 'That's enough—'

'...He's Harry bloody Potter. And you're a Malfoy. You should be marrying that Greengrass woman...'

Narcissa glanced at Harry in concern but he was leant back in his chair, undaunted about what Lucius was saying. His focus was Draco, whom he knew was getting too wound up by his father and it had reached the point where Draco would say something regrettable and storm out.

Draco raised an eyebrow at his father. 'I'm well aware who he is. I always have been. What you need to be is aware of is who I am. And that I'm gay, father, totally and utterly, 100% gay. And you can't change that and nor can you continue this vague hope that I'll marry Astoria bloody Greengrass so I'll add another heir to the ongoing tormented cycle of our family's history. Harry, I need to take a walk. Fancy a drink in town? The company out there maybe infinitely more pleasant and less narrow-minded and selfish.' He didn't wait for an answer but headed straight out, the front door slamming loudly behind him.